When possible, you should place a prompts section at the top of every dashboard page

You should test every field in the prompt to ensure that every report on the dashboard page works properly with the change in the prompt. You must set up reports with the proper "is prompted" operator filters. See section "Is Prompted” Filters in this document

Limit the number of prompts so that the layout doesn't span more than two rows on a page

Prompt Design

Page Scope Level

Except for home pages, you should set all prompt objects with scope setup at the page level, not at the dashboard level.

Constrain Setup

For prompts whose values are not dependent on other prompts on the page, do not select the Constrain check box. Leave the check box deselected for customers to activate.

Drop-Down Control

When using a drop-down list option for the control, carefully consider the All Choices setup. Select the All Choices check box only if doing so will clearly add functional value.

Default Value

Use Report Defaults as the default setup value except when a clear, specific functional value requires a hard-coded value in the prompt.

Session Variables

Avoid using session variables to populate values for a prompt.

Fragmenting Prompts

You should build multiple smaller prompt objects that clearly group objects from a consistent functional domain together, rather than build a large prompt that covers everything needed on a dashboard page. Multiple small prompts can be exposed just as well within the dashboard layout, and may be reused in several areas, whereas large page-specific prompts have a single use and eventually contribute to the increased number of objects in Webcat (and hence TCO).

Layout and Formatting

You should never have more than two rows of prompted objects at the top of a page.

When you have more than one prompt on a page, arrange the prompts horizontally within one section.

Specify the padding for the column that contains this section as 0.

Create a thin layout for the prompts by editing the format as follows:

The resulting prompt will look like this:

Prompt Color Codes

Group the prompts together by function or dimension. Use consistent color-coding for the prompts as follows: